Thomas Nemeth

Nemeth provides a comprehensive overview of the tumultuous times in nineteenth-century Italian philosophy and presents the main proponents of neo-Kantianism in dedicated chapters. Kant's thought initially entered Italy via French sources but met resistance from the dominant philosophy of sensationalism. Those who faulted that latter philosophy turned to Kant, albeit only in piecemeal fashion, incorporating even elements from British philosophy. With the success of Italian unification came a small but vigorous Hegelian wave, one advocating an interpretation oriented toward recent political accomplishments, another followed strictly orthodox lines, and still another a pantheistic interpretation. In the wake of this Hegelian movement, several young philosophers initiated an Italian neo-Kantianism that centered on a realist reading of Kant's epistemology with hardly a nod to either transcendental idealism or the transcendental method. The Italian movement grew ever closer to positivism, particularly as the latter independently found support. But the final blow to the movement came from a revivified neo-Hegelianism. Although short lived, Italian neo-Kantianism confronted problems associated both with Kantian idealism and the role of philosophy.

This chapter surveys the dissemination within Imperial Russia of positivism, principally of the French variety, which sought to dispel all traditional metaphysics associated with the quest for knowledge. With their focus on social science, Russian positivists favored the universal employment of natural-scientific methodology. Especially influential in this context was Comtean phenomenalism as a rejection of religious explanations of natural events and the call for a science of society. Although eclipsed by the rise of Marxism, positivism decisively influenced Russian theoreticians in psychology, legal theory, and philosophy. Some saw in positivism a conservative message, whereas others saw in it a call for the social scientist to be an active participant in the reformation of society.

The Justification’s final chapter presents Solov’ëv’s vision of the moral ideal, which can and will be realized in accordance with the Christian ideal of a Kingdom on God on Earth. In addition to summarizing that presentation, we look here at objections not only to this ideal, but also at the extended critiques offered by two eminent figures, one a prominent lawyer and the other one of the most outstanding Russian thinkers of the century. We also look at Solov’ëv’s at times intemperate and ill-considered replies to each as well as to his short but bizarre treatise on love.

In this chapter, we look at the position of various representatives of Russian Orthodoxy on the traditional philosophical issue of free will versus determinism and the rise of interest in it among psychologists and physiologists. Russia’s small but growing number of professional philosophers formed an officially sanctioned society and took up as their first focus of attention the issue of free will though they largely did so independently of previous efforts in their country. Arguably the most notable of these treatments was that of Lopatin, whose concept of creative causality aroused a harsh assessment from Solov’ëv. His written comments on free will and Lopatin’s understanding of it appeared in print only posthumously and reveal his attempt at outlining a soft determinism that avoids a metaphysical stance.

We continue in this chapter our elucidation of Solov’ëv’s major ethical treatise the Justification of the Moral Good. In its central chapters, Solov’ëv considered utilitarianism as well as Kant’s ethical theory. Although highly critical of the former, he demonstrated decided affinities with the latter despite its theoretical rejection of metaphysics as knowledge and its acceptance of God’s existence as a mere postulate of practical reason. The natural feeling of respect or piety reveals the existence of God. One cannot respect the object of a mere postulate. A major concern in the Justification is with social morality through history. Solov’ëv, contrary to some theories in his time, recognized the role of the individual in history. But the central thrust of his remarks is to reveal the development of human moral consciousness over historical time.

At some indeterminate time but before late 1894 Solov’ëv abandoned the idea of preparing a second edition of his Critique of Abstract Principles and started work on an entirely new ethical treatise that would reflect his altered viewpoint. In this chapter, we look at not just the historical background for this change of plan but also at the history of philosophical ethics in Russia leading up to Solov’ëv’s own work but most of which seemingly remained unknown to him. We also look at a central issue that permeated much of German society in these years, viz., the pessimism associated with questioning the meaning and purpose of life. This issue carried over into Russian philosophy and informed Solov’ëv’s casting of his central ethical treatise from these years, the Justification of the Moral Good.

Solov’ëv intended his brief “Conclusion” to the Justification to serve as a transition to his next major work on metaphysics and an ontologically-oriented epistemology. His sudden death prevented its completion, but the portions he did publish reveal his objection to conceiving human consciousness as a simple Cartesian “thinking substance.” Solov’ëv’s position did not go completely unnoticed by his contemporaries. His friend, Lopatin, who adhered broadly to a Leibnizian rationalism charged Solov’ëv with having a poorly delineated concept of substance and of the “I” of consciousness. Solov’ëv’s own conceptions left him with a variant of phenomenalism, which he had previously always condemned. We also look at his last also incomplete project on Plato.

We look in this chapter at Solov’ëv’s confrontation during the last decade of his life with recent contemporary philosophies, including Comte’s positivism. While highly critical of it, he came at the end to an appreciation for Comte’s quasi-religious turn, particularly his talk of Humanité. Materialism was another metaphysical creed that Solov’ëv thought Kant should have vanquished long ago, but which still drew adherents despite its simplicity. In Nietzsche, on the other hand, Solov’ëv saw an alarming opponent, who preached a message that Solov’ëv took to be directly opposed to his Christian vision. We also look at three Russian figures with whom he maintained a far more nuanced relationship.

In this chapter, we look first at several prominent nineteenth-century Russian legal philosophies including those of Shershenevich and Chicherin, with whom Solov’ëv would squabble in conjunction with their opinions of the Justification. Whereas there were a number of legal positivists before Solov’ëv, Chicherin emerged as a defender of an idealist philosophy of law. Solov’ëv himself took exceptional interest in the topic and addressed it both in his Justification as well as in a separate monograph Law and Morality, the title reflecting the central issue for him of the relation between the two. The outcry against his ideas was largely confined to professionals in the field, Solov’ëv’s treatment of economics, however, of which he had little understanding in today’s sense, and of international conflicts struck a responsive chord across a wide field.

This chapter starts with an overview of the contentious issue of the demarcation of Solov’ëv’s intellectual development into distinct periods. For the purposes of this study, there are three, the second of which spans most of the 1880s in which Solov’ëv involved himself principally in religious and nationality issues. He intellectually distanced himself gradually during these years from his previous allies within the Slavophile movement, and in doing so he found cautious new ones within the “liberal” camp. Whereas Solov’ëv wrote no distinctively philosophical pieces during these years, his literary contributions revolved around moral themes and his view of the role of the Russian nation in his philosophy of history.

Here at the outset, we review Solov’ëv’s early works together with, in particular, his concept of the all-unity, which he developed therein. Whereas a religious, if not mystical, interpretation of it is natural – and Solov’ëv so understood it himself – he accorded a distinct role to philosophy as a rational activity capable of grasping this concept and devoted his early years to its rational elaboration. His career disappointments in pursuit of a professorship in philosophy, however, led him to seek a different path to the dissemination of his religio-philosophical message. This introductory chapter also outlines the philosophical course Solov’ëv would follow until his premature death.

This chapter is a presentation of Solov’ëv’s views of various figures and movements in the history of philosophy. The appearance of successive volumes of the Brockhaus-Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, of which he served as the philosophy editor, gave him the opportunity to author a number of entries himself. Many of these entries were simple expositions of the ideas of historical figures, but with the longer pieces he was able to offer his own criticisms. Among the most important of these entries are those on Kant and Hegel, which reveal not only his own position on many issues they discussed but also that he viewed the German Idealist movement in largely Hegelian terms.

Solov’ëv’s health deteriorated rapidly in the summer of 1900, and his premature death surprised his friends. The many obituaries in the press that stemmed from extra-philosophical communities were full of praise for the departed. Of particular interest was the attention that came from the Symbolist community, which, now recognizing the notoriety accorded Solov’ëv, sought to assimilate key elements of his thought, shorn of any rational underpinning. Russia’s philosophical community failed to rise and defend the Enlightenment commitment to reason. Instead, many of its members yielded to a robust nationalism and along with it saw in Solov’ëv a figure who had expressed a distinctively Russian outlook that departed from Western models. The political environment that ensued for decades, in effect, insured that rational criticism of Solov’ëv’s philosophy would be sidelined, letting the image of Solov’ëv, as a pioneering, religious mystic, go unchallenged.

We look in this chapter at the history of aesthetic philosophies in Russia prior to Solov’ëv’s emergence. Aesthetics was one of the first philosophical sub-disciplines to appear in Russia. Displaying no familiarity with these theories, the early Solov’ëv placed aesthetics alongside ethics and epistemology. In his most detailed treatment of aesthetics, he posited that just as the goal of knowledge is objective truth, so the goal of human creativity is objective beauty. The founding of an academic journal devoted to philosophy and psychology, Voprosy filosofii i psikhologii, gave Solov’ëv the opportunity again to address aesthetic issues, which he did in the form of two articles in 1889/90. Although over a decade separated them from his earlier excursion into the topic, they adopt a standpoint substantially consistent with his earlier writings. We turn finally to Solov’ëv’s last publication devoted specifically to philosophical aesthetics from early 1894. In it, Solov’ëv carried on a subdued polemic with other recently voiced theories and showed support for those of the previously forbidden Chernyshevskij.

In this chapter, Shpet looks at Steinthal, who views psychology as the explanatory science among the human sciences. For Shpet, Steinthal’s position requires us to clarify just what a psychological interpretation is. Through it, we can hope to obtain a more precise answer to just what is special about a historical interpretation as a distinctive type of interpretation. Shpet here also elaborates on the views of philologists after Boeckh who tended to identify their discipline with history, such as Droysen and Bernheim.

Schleiermacher’s understanding of what confronts hermeneutics remains unsurpassed to the present day. For him, the chief task was the search for the content of hermeneutics as well as the clarification of the foundations of its scientific techniques. Shpet wishes to concentrate on Schleiermacher’s treatment of the fundamental principles of hermeneutics. Although Schleiermacher pays little attention to where to start, his overall position is both sensible and free from the commonplaces that are typically found in treatments of practical disciplines.

The second half of the nineteenth century saw a lively interest in the “historical problem.” Shpet here turns to the role of hermeneutics in the ongoing elaborations of the methodology of historical knowledge. Prantl was the first to undertake such a treatment, but his direction turned out to be unfruitful. Dilthey, however, diligently advocated for hermeneutics as the methodological foundation for history as a discipline. While he saw the importance of hermeneutics, his approach was one-sided, which predetermined his entire presentation.

This chapter covers the emergence of philosophy after Russia’s humiliating performance in the Crimean War and with the reforms of the early 1860s associated with the new tsar. But the revival of philosophy in secular institutions meant they had to turn to theologically trained professors for staffing needs. One such was Jurkevich, who criticized Kant from an outspoken Platonism. Another who burst on the philosophical scene was Petr Lavrov, who incorporated a Kantian-inspired phenomenalism into his own original philosophy.